Reduction of CO2 emissions is a key goal for all scientific disciplines, acerbated by the growing evidence of, and concern over, climate change induced by CO2. It is estimated that, in the United States, about ⅓ of CO2 emissions are generated by the transportation sector through combustion of fuels.
One approach to mitigating these emissions is to capture as much CO2 as possible from exhaust gases, prior to their release to the atmosphere. Post-combustion, CO2 capture technologies are being developed for application to stationary sources of CO2. These sources include coal, and natural gas fired power plants, as well as processes for production of materials as diverse as cement and steel. This invention as described herein is useful in such applications, but also in mobile source applications.
Primary challenges for developing useful processes for capture of CO2 from stationary sources, include energy demand, and capital expenditures. Developing technologies which address CO2 capture from mobile sources involves these factors, as well as space limitation, the dynamics of operating conditions, parameters such as high temperature and low pressures, and so forth. High temperatures and low pressures are especially important considerations, because these are outside of the operating and optimum ranges of most CO2 capture technologies.
It is a purpose of the invention described herein to provide an effective, low cost CO2 “scrubbing” technology which addresses these issues. How the invention achieves this will be seen in the disclosure which follows.